Conventionally, chip inductors are either produced without an insulating jacket or enclosed with an epoxy resin shield. The disadvantage of the shieldless or naked chip inductors is evident and the epoxy enclosed chip inductor (which will be also referred to as the epoxy chip inductor hereinafter) is to overcome the disadvantage of shieldlessness. The manufacture process of the epoxy chip inductor is first to make a naked chip inductor by winding wires on a core of magnetic material and then soldering metal terminals to the wire. The portion of the metal terminals in the proximity of the soldering connections are then struck flat to form a desirable terminal shape and thereafter the naked inductor is covered completely with the epoxy material, except the flat terminals, by means of the modeling injection technique, which in some respects is a high temperature process, epoxy being serving as an insulation shield for the chip inductor, but the manufacturing process for the epoxy chip inductor and the epoxy chip inductor itself have several disadvantages:
(1) the epoxy material should be kept in a low temperature and thus difficult to handle in storage;
(2) the naked chip inductor, particularly the wound wire thereof, is easy to be damaged during modeling injection;
(3) it takes time to harden the epoxy material;
(4) workers have to work in a high temperature environments;
(5) the manufacture process is very long and thus reducing the manufacturing efficiency;
(6) the metal terminals are easy to be oxidized in the high temperature injection process and the soldering connection may be damaged in the high temperature environments due to the melting of the solder; and
(7) the variation of the injection pressure usually results in a variation in the finished epoxy chip inductors and sometime breaking the terminals and thus deteriorating the product quality as a result.